Elemental Stitches

In the Kitchen

Cooking everyday in the winter is essential at our house.  The oven keeps the downstairs living areas warm during cold rainy weather.   We also need hot & filling meals to give us enough energy to get through a long cold day outdoors.  The past couple weeks our kitchen has been full of spicy Indian curry, pear and apple galettes, recipes with roots and no knead bread. 

I love sweet winter pears.  They are only in season for a short time and I don't want to miss out so I started making galettes with them and its pretty easy.  Roll out some homemade or store bought pie crust into a circle on parchment paper and spread sliced fruit in the center leaving about 1 1/2 inches around the edges.  My favorite recipe is the tart/pie dough from Alice Waters cookbook The Art of Simple Food.  Probably one of the best cookbooks out there.

Sprinkle everything with cinnamon, sugar and a little flour.  I added a little cheddar cheese because it brings out the apple flavor.  Fold over the edges and baste the whole thing with apricot jam.  Slide the whole shebang to a cookie sheet and bake on the bottom rack of the oven for 40 minutes at 400 degrees F.

Let it cool about 10 minutes before digging in.  We ventured outside to enjoy a rare semi warm day while the galette cooked and mine got a little darker then it should be, but it still tasted great.

Sweet potato fries are also another winter favorite of ours.  I slice these, toss with olive oil and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.  Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20-30 minutes or until potatoes are easily pierced with a fork.  I sprinkle a little more brown sugar before I scarf down half the plate.  This is one of the only ways my daughter will eat them.

I also rediscovered my favorite bread recipe this week and we made it together.

It was finally warm enough to go out back and gauge the yard.  Its going to need lots of work come spring.  My veggie garden has been hibernating for the winter.  I didnt really plan it that way, but I haven't had enough dry days to work outside.  All my seedlings died in our first series of rainstorms, probably drowned.  The only plants still hanging on are the mint, rosemary and oregano, all of which I am still enjoying every time I can squeeze them into a meal.

What's cooking in your winter kitchen?

Simply Sliced Tomatoes

If you haven't noticed already, I love tomatoes.  I have had this love affair with tomatoes long before we grew them in our backyard.  I used to stuff the little ones in my mouth like cherries and I ate the big ones like apples.  After my Mom began her own vegetable garden I tasted my first homegrown tomatoes.  We were hooked!  Now that I have my own garden I only buy tomatoes in the Winter when I am craving a fresh tomato on a taco.  Unfortunately I am usually disappointed.

To find a great tomato buy the best quality you can find or better yet, grow your own.  Its very easy to grow patio tomatoes on your porch.  If you can't grow them then follow these tips for finding the perfect tomato:

- Buy them in season (Summer & Fall).  They are cheaper, travel through less countries and states, and taste a million times better.

-  Try shopping at the farmers market where they are more likely to have been picked that day or the day before.  Mega mart tomatoes are bought from farms which harvest unripe green tomatoes.  These travel several states or countries away and are eventually processed in a chamber with chemicals that turn the tomatoes red.  You are essentially ripening from the outside in, instead of the inside out.  This makes a big difference when it comes to taste.  This applies to many fruits.  If you live in a place that does not have a farmer's market (check here!) try stores like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, which I find has better tasting produce then those pithy cardboard tasting things they sell in a certain gigantic mega mart.  If you doubt me do a taste test.  One tomato from Trader Joe's, Whole Foods or Farmers market vs. a mega mart tomato.  I put all my money on the smaller stores any day.  Try this with peaches and you will notice an amazing difference in taste and texture.

-  Look for a very red (or yellow, or orange) tomato without soft spots, blemishes or holes.

-  Try organic and heirloom tomatoes which often taste better and are grown on smaller farms.  Organic fruit is grown without cancer causing pesticides and herbicides and are much healthier, not to mention tastier.

-  Never, ever, ever store your tomatoes in the fridge.  This ruins the texture of a tomato by lightly freezing it.  Tomatoes should be stored out of the bag and away from heat or bright light.  I put my ripe tomatoes on a plate in the darkest corner of my kitchen counter.  Eat them within 4 days.

The best recipe is the simplest. 

Cut into thick slices and fan the slices out on your plate.

Sprinkle with salt, pepper and basil.  I love to add a drizzle of quality extra virgin olive oil and feta or mozzarella cheese, but this time I went with pure tomato goodness.

That's it!  Fast, simple and delicious!

Happy growing!

Fried Green Tomatoes - Another Recipe

Fried foods are not common in my kitchen.  I fry some things.  Like fish & fritters.  I just dont like the heavy upset tummy I get after eating a bunch of fried food. 

So when I was faced with green tomatoes I was hoping to somehow avoid the ever present FRIED green tomato.  Turns out, there isn't much else to do with them.  It looks like other then fried green tomatoes, these tomatoes are used mostly for condiments.

Chutney

Salsa

Relish

Jam

Mincemeat

I did find one recipe that was for a Tomato and Feta Tart which used green and red tomatoes.  I might make that one after I buy some puff pastry. 

I decided that if Fried Green Tomatoes were the quintessential green tomato recipe then I was going to have to start there.  I pulled out my heavy cast iron skillet, lots of oil, and got to work.  This is my own recipe adapted from the first 10 or so I read about online.  They are a little healthier then most other recipes since I used olive oil and did not deep fry them.

Fried Green Tomatoes

- 4 large green tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick

- 1/4 cup flour - on a small plate

- 1/2 cup cornmeal

- 1/2 cup Panko Japanese bread crumbs.

- 1/2 -1 tsp each of parsley, oregano, and thyme (to taste)

- salt and pepper, to taste or about a 1/4 tsp each.

- 1 egg

- 1/2 cup water

- 1/2 cup - 1 cup regular olive oil (not extra virgin which will burn easier)

- 2 bowls for dipping tomatoes

Directions

Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs, herbs and S&P together in a bowl. 

Beat egg and water together in a second bowl.

I like to make a dipping assembly line with the tomatoes, flour, egg, cornmeal and pan all in a row in that order.  That makes prep faster and with less mess to clean up later.

Get your pan nice and hot, pour in enough oil to coat the bottom.  As the oil heats start dipping your tomatoes as follows:

- Dip one tomato slice in the flour once on each side.  You need a light coating so just one quick flip is fine.

- Dip slice into egg mixture once on each side.

- Then dip this slice into the cornmeal mixture.  Cover with the mix and press gently to get those crumbs to stick well.  Once or twice on each side is usually enough.

- If your oil is hot enough then start adding your slices.  I usually make them as I fry instead of all ahead of time.  I think that if they wait too long to be fried they get soggy.

Cook for about 4 minutes or until the bottom is a nice golden brown.  Flip and repeat with the other side.  I cooked about 4-5 slices at a time in my pan making sure each has space.  You don't want to crowd them or the coating will get mushy from all the moisture in the pan.

Serve immediately to a hungry family.  We used Ranch dressing as dip, but I think these would be great with a raita.  

I still have lots more green tomatoes so expect more recipes.

Simple Tomato Sauce

My little one will be off to Kindergarten in a couple of days.  I wanted to spend some extra time together so yesterday we turned the last few days of tomato harvest into yummy sauce.  It came out so good that I wanted to share our recipe.

-5 lbs of ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped.  Keep the juice!

-6 cloves of garlic

-1 small onion

-salt and pepper to taste

-1/4 -1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes, to taste

- 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary

1/4 cups extra virgin olive oil

Spread tomatoes on a cookie sheet, drizzle 4 tablespoons of olive oil over tomatoes, sprinkle with salt, pepper and half the rosemary.  Broil tomatoes about 3-4 inches from the broiler for 15-20 minutes making sure they do not burn.  

While that is cooking, heat the remainder of the oil in a large stockpot.  Add onions and cook for 3 minutes.  Add garlic and cook until onion is translucent.  Add red pepper flake and rosemary.  Stir to combine and cook another minute. 

Add the tomatoes to the onions, juice and all.  Stir to combine.  Next you want to  process everything in a food processor until smooth.  Its best to do this in batches.  I blend about 75% of my sauce and leave the rest a little chunky.  

Simmer the sauce on low heat for at least an hour.  Two hours is better.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Allow to cool then freeze in freezer bags or containers.

Enjoy!

Savory Dutch Baby Recipe

Everyone remembers their first apartment.  You know, the one in the bad neighborhood with the dingy carpet and loud neighbors.  Our first apartment was one of those.  Most everyone in the building liked us thanks to Tom, who attracts friends like a moth to a flame.

One day while sitting outside with a neighbor I mentioned that I wished I had a set of cast iron pans.  She commented that she had her grandmother's cast iron pans which my friend had brought here from Mexico many years before, but she never used them.  We began talking of other things and not much else was said about it.

The next morning I opened my door to find a beautiful set of old cast iron pans sitting on my doormat.  They were perfectly seasoned and just needed a light scrubbing.  What a perfect gift!  I have treasured them ever since. 

I've been borrowing countless cookbooks from the library and last week I picked up The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook.  I love it!  I chose to make a Dutch Baby, which I had never tried before. 

Oh, what a fabulous choice!  I filled mine with cheddar and ham.

Flaky, doughy, like a savory meat and cheese filled danish.  Here is the recipe.

Savory Dutch Baby

From The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook by Sharon Kramis & Julie Kramis Hearne

Makes 2 servings

3 tablespoons butter

4 extra large eggs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup grated cheese

1/2 cup chopped ham

-Preheat oven to 425F.  To make Dutch Baby, melt the butter in a 12 inch cast iron skillet over low heat.  Mix the eggs, flour, and milk in a blender on medium speed until just blended, 5 to 10 seconds.  Pour the batter into a medium bowl and add the cheese and ham, folding them into the mixture.  Pour into the skillet with the melted butter.

-  Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the top puffs up and is lightly golden, 20-25 minutes.

- When the Dutch Baby is done, cut into six wedges and serve immediately.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie Recipe

Nothing beats a homemade chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven.  Everyone likes their cookies made a certain way.  Some like those thin crunchy cookies, but not me!  I want it soft, big, and gooey.  Full of nuts, chocolate chips and sometimes a little oatmeal.  That junk you buy in the store shouldn't even be called cookie.

The other day, I was flipping through a cookbook called Recipes Worth Sharing and I came across Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie.  OMG!

I had to make one that night.  I normally buy the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies every week so I had them on hand and I was lucky enough to have a pie crust in the freezer.  In an hour I had this beautiful and oh so delicious pie.  A little tip...  wait as long as you can to let the pie cool.  It was best the next day or should I say morning.  We polished it off by noon!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie  

- 2 eggs

- 1/2 cup flour

- 1/2 cup sugar

- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

- 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

- 1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

- 1 unbaked (9in) pie shell

1.  Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl at high speed for 3 minutes or until frothy. 

2.  Add the flour, sugar and brown sugar and beat until blended.  Beat in butter. 

3.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. 

4.  Spoon the mixture into the pie shell and spread until even.

5.  Bake at 325 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until center is set.  Let stand until cool.  

I think this would be great with a graham cracker crust or a Oreo cookie crust!  Plus it is so much easier then making cookies.  So this is my new lazy chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Now I can make this pie when I want homemade cookies, but I don't want to spend 2 hours baking.

Enjoy!

Another Lemony Recipe - Lemon Curd Thumbprint Cookies

After making Lemon Curd I needed to use some of it up.  As delicious as lemon curd is with an english muffin I needed something else to finish it off.

After a quick search through several cookbooks I came back to Alice Waters's The Art of Simple Food.  Her Sweet Tart Dough makes great thumbprint cookies.  The recipe is very easy.  I could make hundreds of these cookies without breaking a sweat.

Lemon Curd Thumbprint Cookies
By Alice Waters

Beat together until creamy:
8 tablespoons of butter (1 stick)
1/3 cup of sugar

Add and mix until completely combined:
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 egg yolk

Add:
1 1/4 cups of all-purpose unbleached flour

Mix well, stirring and folding, until there are no more dry patches.  Form 1 inch dough balls.  Roll in sugar and place on a parchment lined baking sheet about 1 inch apart.  Press your thumb in the top of each cookie to make a depression.  Bake cookies in a preheated 350F oven for 12 minutes.  Remove from the oven and fill the depressions with lemon curd.  Bake for another 5 minutes, or until golden brown.  Let cook before serving. 

I want to try these cookies again using jam to fill them instead of curd.  I think they will be even more delicious!

The rest of the lemons went into lemonade. 

Lemonade
1 cup lemon juice
1 cup water
1/2 cup - 1 cup sugar (Start with 1/2 cup and add more to taste.  1 cup= sweet lemonade)

Double the recipe as needed.
Enjoy your summer!

Lemon Summer - Recipes for Extra Lemons

One of the things I love best about California is the amount of food that is planted along sidewalks and in backyards.  Citrus trees are found in back and front yards all across California.  A friend of mine gave me pounds of extra Meyer lemons from his tree.  I dont make many things with lemons other then lemonade so I was wondering what I was supposed to do with pounds of lemons?

I went straight to my cookbook collection and started pulling out recipes.  The first one I chose was a delicious lemon curd recipe from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.  I LOVE this cookbook.  The recipes are simple, fresh and their are no strange ingredients that will take up space in my pantry. 

Lemon Curd
by Alice Waters
Makes 2 cups

Wash and dry:
4 lemons

Grate the zest of one lemon on the small holes of a grater.  Juice the lemons.  There should be about 1/2 cup of juice.

In a separate bowl, beat until just mixed:
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Stir in lemon juice and zest.  Add
6 tablespoons of unsalted butter cut into pieces. 

Cook mixture in a non reactive heavy pot, stirring constantly over medium heat until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.  Do not boil or the eggs with curdle.  When thick pour into a bowl or glass jars to cool.  Cover and store in the refrigerator. 

Tomorrow I will post the recipe for Lemon Curd Thumbprint Cookies.

Orange Blueberry Sweet Rolls

For our family July marks the beginning of bread and canning season.  By the end of July tomatoes and squash are abundant, peppers are turning rich colors and preparations for canning and freezing have begun.

Baking bread is a hobby I take out and play with every July until well into August.  Until this year I have kept to safe and easy recipes, but this year I am taking a bold step into more complicated breads and pastries.  

I came across Bread for All Seasons while thrifting a couple years ago.  At the time the breads in the book seemed too fancy to make, but I loved the history and stories in the book.  Now I have discovered that the recipes are easy and I usually have everything I need in the kitchen already.  In the book I discovered that many years before supermarkets, grains that were used to make breads all over the world were harvested in July-October.  To celebrate the grain harvest, bread was baked in abundance and shared with friends and family.  Perhaps I have some long lost instinct that urges me to bake in July.  Whatever it is, my family isn't complaining.

Orange Blueberry Sweet Rolls
Its supposed to make 2 dozen but I ended up with about one.  Mine are huge.

Dough
4 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water (110 deg F)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut up
3/4 cup warm milk (110 deg F)
1/2 cup fresh orange juice (zest two oranges then squeeze them for 1/2 cup of juice)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
5 - 5 1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour

Orange Butter Filling
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon
grated zest of 1 orange (from grated and squeezed orange)

Orange Crumb Topping
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom or nutmeg (I used cinnamon)
grated zest of 1 orange
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces

2 cups of fresh or frozen (unthawed) blueberries (next time I will go for small blueberries not the big ones)

1. Proof the yeast by sprinkling it over the warm water and a pinch of sugar.  Let stand until foamy.  10 min.

2. With a whisk or mixer combine the butter and warm milk until dissolved.  Add orange juice, sugar, salt, eggs, yeast mixture, and one cup of flour.  Whisk hard to combine, about 1 minute.  Add remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time until dough clears the sides of the bowl. 

Turn out and knead until smooth and shiny, 2 minutes.  Place in deep greased bowl, turning once to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap (or an unused shower cap) at room temp for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until doubled. 

3.  Meanwhile prepare butter filling by combining the ingredients until creamy and set aside at room temp.
Prepare crumb topping by combining ingredients until mixture is crumbly.  Set aside in fridge.

4.  Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface and roll out to a 12 x 24 in rectangle.  Smear surface evenly with butter filling and blueberries.  Starting from the long edge, roll in jelly roll fashion and pinch to seal seam.  Using a serrated knife cut roll into 1 inch rolls and place on greased cookie sheet or in cake pans.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 40 minutes.  Blueberry juice is okay, it will caramelize during baking.  After 20 minutes, preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.

5.  Sprinkle surface of rolls with crumb topping and bake in the center of preheated oven until golden brown, 30-40 minutes or more for larger pans.  Let stand for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack, crumb side up, to cool.

6.  Savor every bite.